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"CHARTER OAK" 



^4iii( 



By 

ALBERT C. BATES 

u 

Librarian Connecticut Historical 
Society 



1907 






Reprinted from 

ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA 

by permission 

Gifl 

Author 



The C. L. &* B. Co. 



Charter Oak, a tree nearly seven 
feet in diameter, formerly In Hartford, 
Conn.; it blew down in a storm, 21 Au- 
gust 1856. A section of its trunk was 
preserved in the rooms of the Connec- 
ticut Historical Society; the remainder 
— currently believed to rival in miracu- 
lous powers of reproduction the loaves 
and fishes or the Mayflower furniture — 
was kept or sold for small souvenirs. 
It is thus venerated from a tradition, 
first accredited to it in 1789, that in a 
hollow of it was concealed the charter 
of Connecticut rescued from Andros in 
1687 ; earlier ones specify an elm, others 
the houses of different persons. This 
is of little moment; but the adventures 
of the charter form a mystery which the 
latest investigations, instead of illumin- 
ating, render utterly insoluble. The 
contradiction of unquestionable facts Is 
absolute. The story without these is 

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sufficiently peculiar. James II., wishing 
to make Connecticut a part of his con- 
solidated New England under Andros 
(q. v.), found its charter in the way; 
and as the colony declined to surrender 
it, he brought writs of quo warranto to 
vacate it, the last of which was return- 
able in February 1687. To delay or 
avoid voluntary surrender, yet escape for- 
feiture and entire outlawry of rights, 
they replied that they would much rather 
stay as they were, but if they could not, 
preferred a provincial union under An- 
dros over annexation to any other prov- 
ince. The Council chose to consider 
this a formal waiver of charter rights, 
and dropped proceedings under the writ ; 
and on 31 October 1687 Andros rode 
over from Norwich to Hartford, under 
orders to assume the government. Call- 
ing the governor and council together, 
he demanded surrender of the charter 
according to their dutiful assurances. 
The meeting was secret; what happened 
we learn only from tradition, and the 
brief account of a later intimate of the 
actors. The colonial officials protested 

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and debated till after dark; that this 
was prearranged Is not only morally 
certain in Itself, but Trumbull's account 
of a long speech by the governor, to no 
conceivable purpose otherwise, deepens 
the certainty. Candles were lighted; 
the charter was (or the charters were) 
at last brought in and laid on the table; 
suddenly some officious candle-snuffers 
put out all the lights, and when they 
were relighted no charter was to be 
seen. But if Andros had no longer a 
charter to suppress, equally the colony 
had no longer one to appeal to; the old 
government was just as effectually ex- 
tinguished as If they had let him have 
the paper, they cannot have foreseen a 
revolution in England, and it is not evi- 
dent what they intended to do with It. 
Most likely, from their previous actions, 
it was merely to save their " face " from 
the humiliation of a formal surrender. 
There was no outcry by Andros, no 
charge made against the officials, no ap- 
pearance of ill-will to them, no report 
of the affair to England, seemingly no 
disclosure of It to the train of Massa- 

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chusetts magnates who accompanied 
him (and may or may not have attended 
the meeting), or to any one else; and 
(perhaps the most curious of all the 
circumstances of this curious affair) 
both our Informant and tradition stop 
short at the relighted candles and the 
missing document, and give no hint 
what Andros said or If he said anything, 
or whether he seemed puzzled or of- 
fended, or any of the Immediate sequelae 
of the business. The governor (Treat) 
had called a meeting of the General 
Court, which accepted the situation and 
the annexation; the secretary Inscribed 
It on the colonial records and wrote 
" Finis " on them; and the next day An- 
dros publicly proclaimed his commis- 
sion. When James was overthrown 
and Andros with him, the colony re- 
sumed Its government, appealed to its 
charter brought from hiding, and the 
English authorities admitted without 
trial that it had never been vacated. 
But that was chance and not foresight. 
This, however, is only the beginning of 
mystery. The charter, obtained by Gov. 

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John Winthrop from Charles 11. 's coun- 
cil In April 1662, was engrossed in 
duplicate, and the official fees are en- 
tered on the English records. No other 
copies were made, nor could have been 
unless both the others were lost; and 
neither was lost. The first copy was 
sent to the colonial government, which 
acknowledges receipt of " the charter^ 
the duplicate and the old copy of the 
former charter " (that is, the Warwick 
Patent). Duplicate of what? It Is 
usually assumed to mean, of the charter; 
but the facts to be cited prove that It 
was of the patent. Winthrop was to 
bring over the duplicate of the charter 
with him ; and a legislative committee 
was appointed to receive It from him. 
That he did not, Is conclusively shown 
by a letter from the colony to Its agent, 
William Whiting, in 1686, Instructing 
him to obtain It from James Porter In 
London, with whom Winthrop had left 
it, and use It In defending the colony's 
rights before the council. That Win- 
throp may have taken It across once 
more on official business, and left It 

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there, is barred out by the fact that he 
never visited England again. That 
Whiting sent it back within the next 
year, is equally negatived by the fact 
that he continued to need It there and 
the colony did not need It at all, that he 
would not have sent It without orders 
and they gave him no such orders, 
and that In his correspondence there is 
no letter of transmittal. Furthermore, 
a legislative committee of 17 15 voted a 
money acknowledgment to Joseph 
Wadsworth for safely preserving the 
" Duplicate Charter " when " our con- 
stitution was struck at " : It is absurd to 
suppose they made him the grant for 
preserving a second copy when they had 
one safe already. Obviously, the one 
he preserved was the only one they had. 
On the other hand, Roger Wolcott, the 
first narrator (1759), distinctly says 
that " the charters were set on the 
table," and that when the candles were 
relighted the charters were gone. Still 
more specifically, President Stiles of Yale 
writes In his Itinerary, as from Wolcott, 
that Nathan Stanley took one copy and 

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Gov. Talcott's father the other. Wol- 
cott was only eight at the time; but by 
17 14 he was In the council, in 17 15 was 
on the very committee which made the 
grant to Wadsworth, and was certainly 
Intimate with many who were present 
at the scene and probably helped arrange 
It. We have, then, the certain fact that 
there was but one copy of the charter in 
America In 1687, set against the posi- 
tive assertion of one who must have 
known, that two were abstracted. Still 
a third mystery Is, that Wadsworth was 
not present at the meeting and could not 
have taken the paper; that Wolcott, 
who publicly honored Wadsworth as 
the savior of the charter, privately gives 
all the credit to others and does not even 
mention Wadsworth, and that the names 
he cites are really those of members 
present; and that if one of the actual 
abstracters passed it to Wadsworth 
waiting outside, he and not they should 
receive the public acknowledgment. The 
writer can guess at solutions to these 
problems, but all solutions are guesses 
alike. 

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